Video Game / Detective Grimoire

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Detective Grimoire is a series of Point and Click web games made by the Super Flash Bros. You play as the titular Detective, assigned to solve a murder that just happened the previous night. The goal is to travel through the entire location, pick up clues, observe anything odd, and interact with every suspect you come across. During a case, he often receives help from Officer James and a mysterious little girl who always gives out a map of the location Grimoire happens to be in.

Tropes in both games:

Asshole Victim: As the mysteries for each game unfolds, you find out that both victims were not exactly loved by those around them.

In the first game Hugh was a very lazy and hardheaded old man who was half deaf. He practically left the funhouse he was in charge of to ruin with how little he did.

The next victim, Remington is actually part of a Secret hunting society that was trying to kill "Boggy". The entire tourist attraction was built by Remington to get around the fact that the swamp was legally protected from hunting.

Everyone Is a Suspect: Naturally, this is a murder mystery series after all. The only people you can't accuse are yourself, the little girl and Officer James.

Where the Hell Is Springfield?: The events of the two games take place either in Britain or in the US. Officer James wears a British uniform and talks in an English dialect, the toilet is labelled "W.C."note water closet, used in the UK but not in the US, and the price signs of the first game's fair all carry '£' symbols. Yet, Grimoire speaks in a (fake) American accent in the second game, as does half of the cast. It helps that the game was made in England.

Who Murdered the Asshole?: One of the reasons these cases are a touch more difficult to solve than usual. Everyone it seems had motive wanting the victims dead.

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Main/First Game

Craggy Island Fun Fair: Justified because Jerry says it is made to look this way on purpose to give a creepy feeling.

Art Shift: The first game is very much an AnimesqueVisual Novel, complete with characters communicating entirely in grunts and electronic buzzing (much in the style of its source of inspiration) - the background and tone are bleak and realistic, in-keeping with the Creepy Horror aesthetic. The sequel, on the other hand, has a much more quirky and colourful approach of European Western Animation (á la CartoonSaloon), with stylised (and animated) character models, full voice acting and lush hand-drawn backgrounds.

Cryptid Episode: The prime murder suspect is "Boggy," a creature rumored to live in the swamp. The actual culprit was just someone in a costume, but Boggy does exist.

Denser and Wackier: The first game was a fairly realistic murder mystery albeit with some comedy thrown in. In here, not only is there a more comedic edge but the murder suspect this time is a cartoon mascot (though in fairness, Grimoire is clearly not buying it) and it turns out that "Boggy" is in fact a real creature who lives in the swamp.

Lighter and Softer: As stated before, there's a bit more comedy thrown in, including the idea that a cartoonish swamp creature may have done a man in. Also, the culprit in this game only intended to scare Remington into shutting down the swamp and only attacked after he was shot it. Nothing at all like the culprit in the first game who planned to kill from the get go.

You could argue that this is a downplayed trope. For starters, the line between right and wrong is blurred even further than the first game.

Loophole Abuse: A long time ago, hunters would savagely search the swamp to hunt the creature that "Boggy" was based off of. Eventually, all hunters and hunting activities were banned from the swamp. However one of the hunters found out that you could purchase the swamp as your private property, which gave you the right to take down any "trespassers". He then decided that a tourist attraction would be a perfect front.

Swamps Are Evil: Grimoire often goes on about how disgusting and creepy the swamp in while other suspects actually find it rather beautiful. But he does have a point considering the Swamp is the scene of a murder.

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